And Our Dreams That Still Live On
by latessitrice
Summary: The Asset is little more than an empty shell, piecing together the fragments of his life in the captivity of people who call themselves his friends. If he thought there was a soulmate out there for him, he didn't expect to meet her in this way.


**This is Bucky's POV of If You Were My Love, but I tried to approach it in a different way than simply telling the story again from his side. I hope this works...**

 **And Our Dreams That Still Live On**

"Подъём, сержант!"

The Asset is immediately alert. He has been asleep. Now he has been commanded to wake, so he does.

He is dry, and yet the words bring with them the bite of ice water. Like he should be doused with it. Instead, he is strapped down.

He opens his eyes to assess his surroundings. The room is white, unfamiliar, but he is used to waking in new places. The commander is a woman. This is new. She is stood directly next to the only exit, her red hair the sole color in the room. He knows her.

"You!" he snarls, pushing against the restraints. He remembers doing this before, but it wasn't her in the room; men wearing black uniforms, men armed with machine guns, men with hard expressions and cruel intentions.

The strap gives way against the strength in his left arm. She straightens, but does not leave. Not yet. "You remember me?" she asks.

Of course. She was there before he went to sleep: she freed him from the machine, but she was attacking his handlers so he fought her. Then the other man—the one with the shield—

He was injured. It's important that the Asset knows if he survived, but why the man is any concern of his is beyond his understanding. Instead, the Asset uses his free arm to rip the other restraints away.

The commander is gone, the exit sealed behind her.

He remembers only fragments before that fight. The machine, and pain, and cruel faces. The Asset killed one of them. It felt good, even though he thinks it was a handler he slaughtered. Now he is here, taken captive.

He must be free of this room. There will be missions waiting, and punishment if he does not return.

He rolls off the stretcher he was bound to, lifts it and tosses it at the exit. Metal cracks against metal, and the stretcher crumples without leaving a mark on the door. He roars.

A calm voice echoes through the room. Her voice.

"You are James Buchanan Barnes. You were kidnapped by Hydra, and we rescued you."

He shouts again, wordless rage spilling out, and he aims a fist at the lock on the door. Metal collides once more, but his arm is repelled, vibrations rocking through his body.

He is the Asset. He doesn't have a name.

"Even though you don't remember us, you are among friends. We want to help you remember."

Her voice echoes again, in his head this time. " _Отбой, сержант_." He begins to pace, tearing at his own hair. Is he imagining her saying that? She was certainly not around when he was receiving training.

She does not speak again, though he can feel eyes on him. Time passes, but he cannot keep still, the emptiness of the room irritating him. His skin is crawling, his mind a tangle. This is the most time he has had alone with his thoughts, and yet they are scarce.

He must escape, but the room is well designed. He wants out of it because he does not like this feeling, being caged, and yet the thought of returning to his handlers turns his stomach. The machine…the woman rescued him from the machine.

It might be a trick. A test. They have done that before. He can't remember how, but he remembers the pain that followed. Sickly sharp, bone deep.

He will beg if he needs to.

The door opens while his back is turned, and when he whips around the man with the shield is inside. Sealed in with him.

He has healed. He is unarmed. The Asset always has his arm, he is never without a weapon. He would best the other man easily. And yet…he doesn't want to fight him. Just like during the melee before he slept—the Asset's urge then was to protect the man when he was injured.

Not a mission. The opposite of a mission, actions without orders. Something more than fear and anger, the only things he has felt since waking in the arms of the machine.

"Bucky," the man begins, offering a hesitant smile. "We brought you home."

This box is no home. The Asset shakes his head, backed into the corner opposite the man.

"Yes," he presses on. "You don't remember us, not yet, but you will. We've been through this before, it'll be easier this time."

There is another smile, and the Asset has a flash of memory: the same smile, on a smaller face. It is this man, but not this man. It is not something he saw on his handlers: the only smiles they offered were bitter and tainted with cruelty.

The man talks to him, starts at the beginning. "Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, and you're my friend…"

He is Steve Rogers. They grew up together, until the war tore them apart. Turned the Asset into a weapon.

He is not a weapon. He is a person. He has a name.

The man—Steve—talks for hours, until the Asset…James…Bucky…has calmed. He has remembered a little more: brief images that slip away before he can grasp hold. "It's okay," says Steve. "Sleep always shakes more loose." The AssetJamesBucky is weary and hungry. This is where his handlers would put him on ice—he winces at the thought, his lungs seizing with fear and the memory of the encroaching cold flashing over him, pain licking like flames. But Steve does not do that.

"We can move you somewhere more comfortable," Steve suggests. "There'll be a bed. We can walk there, you just have to promise not to fight us or try to escape."

He knows it is futile. Somewhere the redhead waits, ready to command him to sleep if she desires. So instead, he follows Steve down windowless corridors until there is another door and another room. It is also white, but it is not lined with metal. The promise of a bed was not broken, and hot food awaits him on a tray.

When the food is gone—devoured in scant minutes—Steve takes the tray and his leave. "Get some sleep. I'll be back in the morning."

The lights dim, and the AssetJamesBucky is left alone. He retreats to the cot and crawls under the blankets. He has learned to sleep when he can.

He doesn't know how much time has passed when he wakes. Steve was right—more memories have come to him in his sleep, but they are memories he does not want. Blood and carnage, so much of it at his hands—

 _—Please don't—_

—and so much time spent with nerves on fire: ice or electricity, whatever new horror they have devised to control him.

So many voices screaming in his head. Some may be his own.

He paces in the dark, but time is meaningless in this windowless room. Eventually weariness sucks him under again. This time he does not dream, startled awake by movement outside the door.

He is on his feet before they can enter, with his back to the wall.

It's Steve. "I brought breakfast and a change of clothes. Thought you'd want to shower. I'll just leave them here." He places the items on the chair and retreats from the room.

The Asset eats, cleans himself, and dresses. He discards the shirt—it doesn't feel right over his left arm. There are scars on his chest and shoulder, scars he can barely see but he can feel the ridges of. It was not always part of him. He remembers having two flesh hands.

He remembers them sawing one away.

When Steve returns, there is another man with him. The man cowers in the doorway, pretending he is not afraid of the asset. He does not wear a white coat, but the Asset knows a white coat when he sees one. The Asset despises white coats; the man is right to fear him.

But Steve persuades the Asset to allow the man in. His reaction to the polite inquiries about his sleep has Steve offering support and peace. "This helps you, we know it does."

So the two men take chairs while the Asset stays on his cot. From here he can see the door and will have a clear sight of any intruders.

"Do you remember me?" Steve asks.

"Yes," the Asset replies. "Not…not from yesterday. From before. We knew each other. A long time ago." The words aren't enough, not to explain the pieces in his head. Some he is missing, some he needs to put in the right order, but he has enough of them right now to know that Steve has been a longstanding presence.

Steve beams at this, and the white coat takes the opportunity to press ahead with his own questions. The Asset does not have answers for many of them.

Steve is not expecting interruptions. He frowns when there is a knock, crossing to the door to blockade it. He has his back to the Asset, a foolish move, but the Asset has no desire to hurt Steve.

He can barely see around Steve—there is a flash of red hair, and a pause while Steve stands silently. A decision is being made, and the Asset does not know if he will like the outcome. But Steve moves aside and another figure enters the room. Not the redhead; a brunette girl.

She's a civilian, not a soldier or a spy or a white coat. She is soft, small, her stance unbalanced and her posture loose. She doesn't belong in this room, a sheep among wolves. He wants to tell Steve to send her away, for her own sake, but he is curious about her—what is her purpose?

Blue eyes meet his, and there's a weight of sorrow in them. Teeth worry at her plump lower lip, and despite everything, he has the urge to gather her to him. He doesn't know where it's come from, this urge to touch, and it shakes him.

"This is Dr Adebayo," Steve says to the girl, but doesn't tell the Asset who she is. But there's something new to focus on here: an underlying hostility from Steve. It raises more questions.

"What are we calling him?" she says to Steve, gesturing towards the Asset, and Steve defers to the white coat. Something unpleasant inside the Asset enjoys watching the white coat squirm as he's required to speak.

"Is there something you'd prefer to be called?" the white coat asks. The Asset resists the urge to roll his eyes. They've all got their preferred names for him anyway, these people who find him so familiar. They've all got an identity pinned to him, presumably even the girl, and it doesn't matter that he doesn't feel like James, or Bucky, or whatever else they want to try. He shakes his head and waits for whatever will come next.

The girl glances at Steve, but that hostility comes to the fore, and despite himself the Asset is curious. Why has Steve allowed her in here if he dislikes her so much?

He doesn't ask, his question forgotten when she tilts towards him, body language timid, and speaks. "I guess this is goodbye."

The skin of his back itches at her words, and he knows it's not real, that what he thinks he feels isn't happening, but he also knows that somehow what she has said is significant. "Those words…" He tries to think of when he has heard them before. They echo in his head, in Steve's voice. "I know those words."

He looks to Steve for clues, and the shock on the other man's face is apparent. One corner of his mouth begins to tug upwards.

"Sure you know those words, Buck," he says. "I used to tease you about them all the time."

He did. The Asset pushes himself to the edge of the cot, drawn towards the girl once more. A memory has shaken itself loose: the small Steve speaking, holding up a mirror to catch the reflection of the Asset's back in another one. Black words twist across his skin, like a bold tattoo.

 _Soulmark._

The Asset knows what a soulmark is. Even when they took his life away from him, scooping him hollow until there was only a weapon left, he still knew how the world worked.

"'Those are awful strange words for your soulmate to say,'" the Asset murmurs, repeating the Steve of long ago. "You used to say that to me."

"I did," Steve confirms.

"Is it true?" Bucky asks. He looks to the girl—the one who has said the words, _his_ words—and feels the world shift around him. She could be…she could be—

But she looks lost. "Is what true?" she asks, confusion pouring out of her.

It's Steve who replies. "Yeah, I think it is." His smile is growing, and the Asset gives into his urge to be near the girl. Her eyes widen as he gets closer, though she doesn't back away.

"What did you used to say to him?" she asks Steve, as the Asset comes to a halt in front of her. She is nearly a head shorter than him, dark hair winding its way over her shoulders and down her back, and her face is _lovely_ , he decides. A full mouth and expressive eyes, and that gentle bearing. For the first time since he woke in Hydra's captivity, he feels something other than fear and anger: awe and hope blooming inside. It doesn't make sense that she is meant for him, and yet he can't find the will to care.

"I said 'Those are awful strange words for your soulmate to say'," Steve says to her.

She is awestruck too, and the strength of his emotions brings the Asset to his knees before her. He clings to her, a warm anchor, and thanks the universe for bringing her to him when he needs her the most.

Her fingers are in his hair, soothing, and he wants to stay like this as long as he can. He remembers her scent from somewhere, and realizes that even if he doesn't remember her, he has known her before. She knows him.

What happens afterward isn't important, only that she is near him. Her name is Darcy, and she calls him Bucky, just like Steve. At first, it still feels wrong, but after hours of them calling him that name, it stretches to fit. It's only been a day. Maybe he can be Bucky again.

Darcy looks at him like he's more than a weapon, like he isn't only the Asset, and he aches inside to be that for her.

When she leaves, she promises to return the next morning, and waits until he slips into a drugged, dreamless sleep. It means he has no fresh memories of her when she returns in the morning, but that sense of knowing her, like he knows Steve, has settled. He can predict the way she'll move, her mannerisms familiar, and it brings him comfort even while it still feels like every nerve ending he has is exposed to the world.

The first memory that does come, a few nights later, is a jumble: a bright room filled with items in clashing colors, and Darcy is there, owning the space. There are flashes of conversations they had in that room, of endless smiles from Darcy, and the urge to make her do it over and over.

When he describes the room to her the next day, she does exactly that.

He swears off the sleeping pills to risk seeing more of her. This time, he is bringing her coffee, dogging her footsteps around the facility even when she was unaware. The urge to be close to her is not fresh, then.

This is where it gets confusing. Bucky knows they were friends, but he doesn't understand why she only just became his soulmate, or when he said her words. And the more he remembers—little pieces of a jigsaw that reveal a picture of yearning and desperation—the less he understands.

 _"Do I scare you?"_

 _"No!" She's fierce, and she's close, but not close enough. It feels like there's a gulf between them, between the way she sees him and the way he wants her. "No. You already know that I have a terrifying lack of self-preservation, and we've talked about this. You don't see me as a threat, remember? If you don't see me as a threat, you're not a threat to me."_

Without the pills, though, he opens himself up to other memories, ones soaked in blood and terror. When Darcy arrives with breakfast one morning to find him sweat-soaked and trembling, she makes him promise to stop subjecting himself to the nightmares and take the drugs.

"You need to heal, and you can't heal if you aren't resting," she says, and he is powerless to say no in the face of her concern. Even when he wants to protest that he needs to remember her, wants to have every piece of their history together unlocked in his mind, because none of it makes sense so far. He hates being robbed of any moment with her, but he does it because Darcy wants him to.

The white coats also suggest that peaceful sleep will help him recover his memories. His days are filled with exercises designed to trigger them: word association games, looking at ink splotches, and being asked to draw whatever is on his mind. They help, but it does mean his days are invaded instead of his nights. Sometimes there is Steve, occasionally there is Darcy, but more often than not there is violence and pain.

He doesn't want to cry in front of the white coat, but he doesn't have much control when he's reliving the deaths he's caused. Steve rocks him, when he's here, and lets him babble about it.

"How can any of you stand to be near me?" he snarls, after a vision of squealing tires and a cracked windscreen, bodies thrown onto the road and necks snapped with his bare hands. "I don't deserve your help, I should be locked away and left to rot."

"It's not the first time we've been through this, Buck," Steve says, trying to soothe him. "There's nothing you've done we don't know about, and there's nothing to forgive. It wasn't _you_ , it was Hydra and what they did to you."

"Is this why?" he asks. "Is this why she didn't want me before?"

It's the only thing that makes sense to him. She might not have been afraid of him, but he remembers her pushing him away: dating other men and keeping him at arms' length, even when it must have been obvious how he felt about her. The time another man turned up in her office to take her away…he'd been the Asset, just for a moment. He'd wanted to crack bones and shed blood, because this man had the audacity to be near Darcy. Only her quick exit had let the possessive mist dissipate, and then he'd been left to feel sick and guilty in her wake.

"She did want you," Steve reassures him. "It was a complicated situation, but you were working it out."

He senses the lie in those last words. It has to be a lie, or Darcy's words on Bucky's skin wouldn't be a farewell.

Whatever her reason, he knows that he'd followed her around the facility, the urge to protect and be close to her growing until it was stifling. Darcy hadn't known, but others had to have done (the redhead— _Natasha_ —she'd never told him to back off but she had wandered into his path on more than one occasion, forcing him to abort his tailing of Darcy without uttering a word).

He'd stopped, he knew that much, forced himself to back away because she wasn't his and it wasn't fair to her.

Bucky could ask Darcy about any of this, but his time with her in the present is too precious: snatched hours when she isn't working, time he doesn't want to spend digging over old scars or his own, hitherto unrevealed, creepy behavior. He has nothing to offer her, but he can't bear to taint this, soaking in the peace she offers with every unguarded touch and spontaneous laugh.

It's the peace he craves. He knows she can't stop the dreams, but when he has them, waking panting and screaming, all he wants is her.

The plan is simple to devise and simple to execute. The first he does without ever intending to put it into action, relying on a cardigan she forgot and carries her scent to calm him instead. But when he wakes, hysterical, expecting to find her hands coated in her blood and her body limp beside him, he has to know it isn't real.

The bathroom is the only space they don't watch him, and he can't linger long, or they'll know he's up to something. He pushes the ceiling tiles aside and hauls himself up, into the dark confines of the void above. He's got a mental map to follow, and it takes him to Darcy's bed.

She doesn't rouse when he curls up beside her, shifting at his touch but settling as he pulls her close. Whatever she's dreaming of, he hopes it's pleasant, and the slight smile on her face suggests it is.

He drifts, and he feels safe.

 _He's on his sofa, and he isn't alone. It's dark, the quality of the light suggesting it's pre-dawn. The bank vault and every horror they inflicted on him down there echo through him—this isn't the first time he's jerked awake tonight. But she's there, an anchor, when she never has been before._

 _He feels like he's taking liberties. She stayed to provide comfort, and here they are, limbs twined together like lovers._

 _The thought makes his heart ache._

 _Her face is tucked into his neck, her torso resting against his, and her leg is crooked over his hips. It's intimate, but he doesn't want to let her go. That possessive, dark corner of his mind is purring at their position._ See how natural this is? See how she clings to you as she sleeps?

 _He knows how she looks at him sometimes, before she can throw a mask up and hide it from him. It's the same way he looks at her, but with an added shadow of something he thinks might be despair. If only she knew; if only she'd let him in. He'll do anything, anything, to make it go away._

 _He needs to talk to her—he can't keep living like this, haunted by her even when she's right there. She has to know how deep his feelings for her go—and they are deep, rooted somewhere visceral, and could only be removed by gutting him entirely._

 _The decision is not easy, but once made, he won't back down from it. He's faced worse, and he's confident that when Darcy understands that all he wants to do is make her happy, she'll let him in. At the least, he won't lose her friendship, because he can't bear the thought of her not being in his life at all._

 _Before he drifts back to sleep, he shifts them, so they are both on their sides, Darcy facing away from him. God knows there's an intimacy to holding her this way too, his arm looped around her waist, but she won't wake up to their previous position and run from him before he can speak._

This time, he wakes in the same position, but it's to her bed and her smiling face. She's not angry with him, but she can't promise other people won't be. Natasha and Steve accompany him to meetings, doctors and agents he hasn't met before. Questions upon questions upon questions. Demand after demand.

He'll promise anything if he can run to Darcy when he needs her.

He almost feels like a real person, finding the rhythm of life again and inhabiting the spaces he used to know. Though his quarters feel sterile compared to Darcy's, the bed too empty, but he can shut the world out when he needs to. There are no demands on him here, no prying eyes. He can sift through his thoughts in his own time.

Every piece of the puzzle brings him more confusion.

It's a simple thing which brings it all together, in the end. The suggestion of Chinese food, as she stands at her kitchen counter, and he can smell it. The scent of a long-gone night.

 _Staring down at her, heart thudding in his chest._

 _"I know you want to avoid a relationship," he says, watching her breath catch, "because of your soulmate." The mystery man, the waste of skin who didn't know what he was missing out on. "I knew, even before I heard you mention it, that you were trying to keep distance between us. You felt the pull and tried to put barriers up. I guess I understand, now, but I need you to know it doesn't have to be that way."_

 _She doesn't resist when he takes her hand between his, doesn't even blink as he continues talking._

 _"I might not be him. I might not be the man the universe gave your words to, and honestly, I'm glad, because anyone who could walk away from you doesn't deserve the privilege. But you don't have to shut yourself away and think there's nothing but loneliness coming for you. Not when you've shown me that it doesn't have to be that way."_

 _There's fear in her eyes, a raw fear that he doesn't understand. Doesn't she realize he's trying to make it better?_

 _"I try not to think about the future, but when I do, you're in every version of it that I want." She closes her eyes, a flicker of pain crossing her face, and he cups it. She's trying to protect herself, still, and can't see that she has nothing to fear in him. "I want to make you happy, Darcy. I can't, won't, make empty promises about always being good at that, but I want to try, and try, and try, until I get it right. I want to make you forget that other asshole even exists. I want to make you love me, like I love you."_

 _There are tears spilling from her eyes, but she doesn't pull away when he presses his lips to hers. He'll keep doing this all night, if he has to._

 _"Your words…" she whispers._

 _"I don't care!" He tries to wipe the tears away with clumsy fingers. "They aren't important."_

 _"They aren't mine!"_

 _His brain short circuits for a moment. Her words are simple, but their meaning—the way she sobbed them, the way she's bitten her lip like she wishes she could take it back._

 _Oh._ Oh.

 _"You never told me who he was. I-I never asked." He's been a fool. "Where are your words?"_

 _She moves away from him, to tug at the hem of her blouse and show him the quicksilver cursive adorning her hip._

You don't look like much of an asset.

 _No. No, no, no, no, no._

 _"Why didn't you tell me?"_

 _She shifts even further away. "Because I'm not yours, so it didn't matter. You've got someone else out there waiting for you."_

 _Now he's the one who has to move, to get away from her, a bolt of anger pulsing through him. Anger at her, anger at the_ fucking _universe, anger at himself for being so blind—_

 _"So you'd rather spend months lying to me?"_

 _"I've never lied to you! I haven't told you everything, but this is my life. My burden. I got to choose how I dealt with it."_

 _It's a fumble, and she knows it. She hasn't been honest with him since the day they met, despite her knowing his life has been full of people keeping the truth from him._

 _"That's great—you get to choose. I get other people making decisions for me, again. I spent decades with other people controlling everything about my life, and you went and decided this without even including me in the process." He gets a choice, and he knows he still chooses her. Whatever she's done, they can work through, because this is Darcy. She looks wrecked and he has to go to her, to continue on the path that led him here tonight. "I am done with that part of my life," he vows. "No one gets to control it or shut me out. Not you, not the universe. I want you. Destiny can go fuck itself."_

 _She steps back, until she hits the door and has nowhere else to go. "And when they turn up? The love of your life, your perfect partner?"_

 _"Not interested. I will get these words cut out of my skin if I have to." How can she think there's anyone out there more suited to him than her?_

 _"What difference will that make? You know what they are. You'll know, just like I did. Even if you think you can run from it, one day you'll realize I'm not enough anymore. Like you said, you can't make any promises. One day you'll be gone, and it will be just be me again."_

 _He has to make her understand, desperation forcing him closer. "Please, Darcy…"_

 _Her hand stops him. "It's not your decision alone to make. It's mine too, and I already decided. I'm sorry if I didn't involve you in that, but trust me when I say I've got the shittier end of the deal. I can't open my arms to you and hope for the best. I can't. And it wouldn't work anyway—I'd spend every minute with you looking over my shoulder, waiting for someone better to come along."_

 _Her words ring in his ears, firm and final. He wants to tear things apart, and he isn't sure where to begin. This can't be it. This can't be it._

 _"I love you," he says, a final act of desperation._

 _"I think you should go," is all she says in response, opening the door to let him pass._

"I don't understand."

He's on his knees, feeling like he's taken a punch to the gut, and Darcy has joined in, concern etched on her face. "Bucky?" she asks, brushing his hair away from his eyes.

He scoots away from her, the memory leaving him with an aftertaste of betrayal.

"I told you I loved you," he murmurs. "And you—you—"

She crumples in on herself, crawling back to give him space, but he catches her hand before she can leave entirely.

"No. I need to know. I need you to explain it all, because it doesn't make sense. I still don't know when I said your words, or why—any of it."

She nods and leads him to the sofa, where they sit at opposite ends and she tries to put the story together from beginning to end. Their first meeting—the one he is unlikely to ever remember—and their friendship, the one he'd pursued when she wanted to pretend she'd never met him. Everything, every sorry thing that had happened until she told him goodbye.

They don't eat that night. He needs space to process it all, his head heavy, and he fears the worst from his dreams. Instead, he remembers the aftermath: returning to quarters, unloading on Steve, and them spending the best part of the night researching scenarios where mis-matched soulmarks had led to happy endings.

Because Darcy was going to be his happy ending, and she was going to be his, whatever she thought. Only he'd never had the chance to tell her this before Hydra robbed him of his memories again.

He finds her the next day, at peace with everything that's happened. He understands what she did, even if he mourns the months they could have spent together if she'd only been honest to him. She is waiting for his judgment, like she's expecting a punishment and thinks she deserves it, but there's nothing further from his mind.

"Can I kiss you?" he asks when he's said his piece. She gasps at him in surprise, but nods, letting him wind her in close so he can hold her to him.

He's aiming for sweet and chaste, but he overshoots that by a mile. She is panting when she pulls away, shivering in his arms, and he doesn't let her move far. Not when he's got her exactly where he wants her.

"I love you," he mumbles against her lips.

"I love you too."

Yes. This feels a lot like a happy ending. Or, at least, the beginnings of one.


End file.
